Mariott Shifts Disaster Recovery to Iron Mountain

Mariott International has migrated their disaster recovery plan from a 3rd party contract to their own insourced Recovery and Development Center (RDC). The Mariott RDC will reside in Iron Mountain's 145 acre "underground city", about an hour north of Pittsburgh. The data center is 220 feet underground, is naturally cooled, and highly secure (i.e.: "various government entities" are there).

"John Morency, a research director at Gartner, says the need for quicker response and recovery times is driving many companies to weigh the cost of their existing contracts with external providers against the expense of doing the work internally. Plus, many IT staffs want added flexibility to manage and test their disaster recovery processes, rather than being subjected to the rigid time frames of many third-party agreements."

Mariott found that the cost of the 10 year colo deal was neutral to its existing agreement for disaster recovery. Because the ambient temperature of the mine is 55 to 60 degrees Mariott will be able to reduce energy consumption, as well as lower operating costs.

Now, if they could just make it so you load some container data centers into the mountain, we're set!

Check out the CIO case study here.